LA JOLLA  FBI agents staged raids Wednesday in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, arresting 14 people including a La Jolla man suspected as a top manager in a violent, international gambling ring that took millions of dollars in illegal sports bets over the past decade.

One alleged founder of Macho Sports International, the Internet and telephone gambling organization, was arrested in Norway.

The arrests came after an extensive wiretap investigation by the FBI, which also got undercover agents into the betting organization in 2011, authorities said.

Amir Mokayef, 37, of La Jolla is among those suspected of running Macho Sports. FBI agents spent much of Wednesday removing items from his Soledad Road home. His house and bank accounts also were seized as possible illegal gains from the gambling enterprise.

A total of 17 men and one woman were indicted on charges of racketeering, extortion, bookmaking and running an illegal sports betting ring from Panama and Peru to avoid U.S. law enforcement.

The defendants include Benjamin John William Weber, 27, of La Mesa, Howard Alan Blum, 51, of Carlsbad, and Michael Christopher Iaco, 30, Salvatore Giacomo Groppo, 37, and Michael John Massey, 41, all of San Diego.

Iaco, Mokayef, Groppo and Massey were arraigned Wednesday in San Diego federal court, where they pleaded not guilty. A magistrate judge set bond for all but Mokayef, and some were expected to be released by Wednesday evening.

Defense attorney Vikas Bajaj, who represented Groppo on Wednesday, said afterward that most cases that rely heavily on wiretap evidence come with a tremendous amount of discovery. He said it will likely take months to sift through it all to figure out whether the allegations can be proved.

Outside the courthouse, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Schopler said ringleaders sent sometimes violent collectors to the homes of losing gamblers who hadn’t paid their debts. Schopler said one collector, nicknamed “Lurch,” pistol-whipped and kidnapped some victims.

“The organization ensured the prompt payment of gambling debts through the use of intimidation, threats and violence as well as fostering a violent reputation as to its treatment of delinquent customers,” prosecutors said in a news release.

Court documents said that in one wiretapped conversation, Mokayef told a man he might have to “bring the dogs out” — enforcers — to collect a debt.

On another wiretap, Mokayef is alleged to have complained to Weber about a customer’s $43,000 debt.

“I don’t need the money,” Mokayef is quoted in the documents. “I wipe my (expletive) with $43,000.” With further expletives, Mokayef said it was the “principle” of the thing.

Weber is described in the documents as working for the city of San Diego at the Torrey Pines Golf Course, where Mokayef is alleged to have met the La Mesa man once last year to pay him a commission on a client. Attempts to reach a golf course manager by phone Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The documents also said Mokayef was a member at the Grand Del Mar private golf club, and that on a Nov. 1 wiretap he said the resort had complained to him that it had received a complaint about his bookmaking activities and wanted it to stop.